Sarko’s top-jobs Christmas package

The decision on the four top jobs in the EU could be made by December, six months before the European Parliament elections. A senior EU diplomat said last week: “We have no alternative but to reach an agreement by the end of the year.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is keen to wrap up a deal during his country’s presidency of the EU, which runs from July to December. The timetable is also receiving backing from Berlin and London.

There is already growing support for giving José Manuel Barroso a second term as European Commission president – even though this decision is, according to the Lisbon treaty, supposed to reflect the outcome of the European Parliament elections in June 2009. Barroso is backed by the UK, and can now probably count on Italy, since Silvio Berlusconi supported him in 2004. Merkel’s support might be won by en

Since the criteria for Council of Ministers president include “political and geographical balance” – according to senior diplomatic sources – as well as “qualification and suitability”, a centre-right Commission president would mean that the two other political groups would share the two other key roles of president of the Council and high representative. This could give greater weight to the suggestion – outlined in last week’s European Voice – of Denmark’s Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a Liberal, as Council president, if a suitable socialist candidate is agreed as high representative. Bernard Kouchner, currently French foreign minister, and with strong left-wing credentials, is frequently mentioned in this role, confirm diplomatic sources from Berlin and London.

Parliamentary deal-making

A senior diplomat made clear last week that getting early agreement on a package would depend on “how many other positions you can bring in”, referring explicitly to the role of president of the European Parliament for 2009-14. A possible deal between the two biggest groups in the Parliament – the European People’s Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED) and the Party of European Socialists (PES) – envisages Jerzy Buzek, a Polish centre-right MEP and former prime minister, for the first two-and-a-half years, followed by Martin Schulz, current German leader of the PES group. Schulz

denied the deal at a press conference in Strasbourg last week, but Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister and a leading figure in the socialist SPD, has confirmed the existence of the plan to the EU affairs committee of the lower house of Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag.

Fact File

Sliding doors I

A deal between the EPP-ED and the PES over the Parliament president arrangement would certainly suit Germany’s SPD, by lockingA its CDU coalition partner into sharing top posts even if the coalition does not survive the autumn 2009 German elections. EU officials believe Steinmeier is keen to replace Günter Verheugen as Germany’s next European commissioner if, as expected, the SPD does badly in the elections.

Sliding doors II

Nicolas Sarkozy is reported to want France’s current permanent representative, Pierre Sellal, to replace his compatriot Pierre de Boissieu as deputy secretary-general of the Council. If Sarkozy decides to push for Kouchner as high representative, it could provide France with a bargaining position to accept the powerful number two post at the Council as an alternative.Claude Juncker as Council president and expressly reject former UK prime minister Tony Blair), there is increasing support for the concept of a package by December, because once the Lisbon treaty comes into force, the new Council president and the newly strengthened high representative will have to start work. One of the incidental casualties of an early deal, paradoxically, would be the Lisbon treaty’s pious hopes for account to be taken of the views of EU citizens as reflected in the outcome of the European Parliament elections.

Summit talks

The first real discussion about the posts is likely to take place at the EU summit in June. Although there is currently no sign of consensus (German politicians have made clear their preference for Luxembourg’s Jean-